Archive for the ‘games’ Category

We were strolling around the Internet when we found a game called ” Papers, Please “, supposedly an immigration officer simulation game set in a dystopian Republic of Arstotzka.

In the mentioned game, the player works as an immigration officer in the 80’s screening people attempting to cross the border into the Republic. Player must find discrepancies in the documents given, such as mismatched gender, expired passports, forgery, and even wanted criminals.

Google Play Banner for Trigger Knight (Proprietary Image taken from Google Play)

Today I revisited an old game and played it once more. I liked it and its mobile edition enough to actually write another review specifically for it.

Web-based version of the game in progress (Screenshot of Proprietary Software)

This game, Trigger Knight, follows a blademaster girl who dashes around endlessly. Her life fading away, she ran and ran, destroying any enemies in her path, upgrades her gear, and get her “lifespan” restored from time to time.

Trigger Knight, developed by Mintsphere, utilizes the recently popular One-Button Gameplay Mechanic, which was popularized by games like Canabalt. You use just the left mouse button or screen tapping to interact. All running and combat are automatically executed.

Fortunately I have a potion right now. If not, I’ll be faced with a decision. (Screenshot of Proprietary Software)

I talked about upgrades. Yes, there are, but you have to decide wisely. You can only buy one specified item the shop you’re running over is offering, and there’s no turning back. Will you take it or leave it? Or to be more exact, will you take it and deny yourself a church (which without it you will fade and die) or a potion shop (which without potions you will be hit by the next monster and die too), or wait and grab that new sword from the next bladesmith? Your call.

For its simplicity, execution, graphics, and gameplay design I give it a really positive review. I was impressed by how much you can reduce a JRPG into a one-button arcade. It’s free, and it’s even mobile. Why say no to this game?

After mastering my “home turf” at Woodland Home in the previous post, I took my Nord “multi-role” for another spin. This time we met a bunch of civil war combatants (Imperials vs Stormcloaks) fighting each other near Redoran’s Retreat. Since my doctrine is to “unify Skyrim my own way, one troop at a time”, I went ahead and Fireballed both sides, prompting them to go after me.

A minute into the fight I realized there were too many Stormcloaks than I could handle. I decided to run away to the nearby bandit-owned Silent Moons Camp. While the name says it’s a camp, it’s a stairtop forge facility with moderate bandit garrison. Hoping for Stormcloaks and the bandits to slaughter each other. I knew the Stormcloaks would win, but this will give me some breathing room.

My break ended when I heard a dragon’s cry. My duties as the Dragonborn forced me to come out and slay the dragon, whatever means necessary. The situation escalated quickly when two mammoths entered the battle area. I did what I have to do: kill them all. Lacking proper rage spells, I shot more fireballs at the mammoths, prompting them to fight. After a lot of running and slashing, the dragon landed and relieved many Stormcloaks of their heads before succumbing to combined forces of swords, spells, and stampede. The dragon died, and I killed all the weakened loose ends.

Result of battle:

Imperial units routed

Stormcloak rebels suffered too much loss due to dragon attack and had to leave

I shopped in Whiterun, at Belethor’s General Goods Store, then went to my “build-your-own-home” foundation in the woods using fast travel (f-you immersionfags). Somehow, Belethor followed me there too. It would have been nothing if there’s no WARZONE there — the area was infested by 10+ soulthirsty necromancers out for anyone’s lives, persistently.

I ran and ran, even though I was considered overpowered against bandits, I was a no-go against multiple necromancers as I was not equipped to fight head-on against too many enemies in open field at once. (Best way to deal with necromancers depends on character builds, but I just buff myself and slash’em to Oblivion.)

The area was too sparse for me to use Fire Breath shout (Yol), the enemies running too fast to use firebolts or bows either. Sword-dashing is also a suicide, so I had to run, run and run. It took me three minutes to realize that the mages were mostly fire-based, so I decided to use a leftover spell I had: Summon Flame Atronach (Atronach is like an “elemental” from other mythology themes)

Why fight fire with fire, some of you may ask? This is because being a fire mage does not automatically grant you fire resistance, but atronachs are MADE OF fire so they are always 100% immune. This means fire-mage vs flame-atronach fight is a one-way kill. If the mage can’t adapt, he dies.

The Atronach worked well until they got sniped by skeleton archers a minute into the fight. I had to rush those skeletons while dodging all other spells. As a role-play element, I restricted myself (mentally) from leaving the battlefield (it’s MY HOUSE there. I cannot abandon it!) and had to run around.

I eventually resorted to “lose the battle but win the war” scheme, went into hiding then sniped all those damn mages one by one.

After the last guy went down I went to the workshop and was jumped by another, one last mage. I took him down with the sword, then (mentally) kicked his body down the waterfall like in the movies.

Aftermath: M’aiq the Liar visited my house. He stood in the river, with no care to the world. I don’t know what happened to Belethor the merchant but I presumed he fled back to his city. He should not have tried to spy how I get my wares, and he should never ever consider that from now on.

I have recently come across this particular game released over a year ago, thanks to Indie Gala for this. Let’s get started.

Storyline

This game follows the story of Dorothy Derbec, a.k.a. DeeDee, whose father Guillaume Derbec was lost in WWI, requiring her to live with his father’s squadmate Tommy. She’s the sky-bound type of girl: uneasy on the ground, at peace in the air. She smuggled liquor right up until WWII reaches Tobruk where she does her job. Carrying her last name Derbec, Dorothy inherited a lot from her father.

Due to her need for mechanics, she met Clive, a drunk aircraft engineer who can’t fly but knows all his planes. Due to her need for money, she had to fight in this war. After a particular war event, she changes her view of the war. Money fell behind in her list of priorities. Along the way, DeeDee meets more of her father’s old squadron, learning his heroic tales through their words.

Of course, since there are heroic tales of a former ace mentioned, there must be flashbacks. Yes, flashbacks are presented with sepia-filtered levels with the player taking the role of the storyteller flying in biplanes, fighting the old WWI with the Derbec Dad. This means two campaigns are alternated: WWII campaign narrated by DeeDee, and the WWI campaign by her father’s friends.

The writer did good job designating a woman as the main character. “But it’s the air force not infantry!” seems valid as an excuse to insert women into violent games, along with “But she’s Lara Croft!” The old squadmates also provide good expansion to the story, filling the story of the old ace piece-at-a-time.

Gameplay

This game plays more like a flying arcade than a simulator. The entire plane has just one “health bar”, except in some rare cases you might score a critical hit which results in instant kill. Fortunately, it works one-way. The game sports many plane models ranging from the WWI-era biplanes to Spitfires to Messerschmitts.

In single-player, you just do what the others tell you to. Yes, exactly. To the letter. Sometimes there are time limits, sometimes not. Just be quick, add some firepower, top off with finesse, then you win. Since I cannot find anyone to play multi-player with, I have to leave that part out of this review.

The game also features a small amount of stealth-based missions, which are quite fun but also frustrating. On the other hand, sometimes you do the searching, for ground targets however. In this case, the game presents you with hidden ground targets. It needs some getting used to, but is very easy in the end.

The two-linear campaign style keeps the player focused on the missions rather than attempting to maximize gains or capitalize on events, while the player is given a choice of planes to suit his/her play style. I am in favor of this, as the game does quite good on storyline development. It’s good game if you just want to fly without the need to watch all the instruments: the most complex thing you can do to yourself is stall to death, which can be easily avoided by increasing throttle.

Graphics

Not quite good. While Air Conflicts utilizes the graphics card well, running on HDR and all, this game suffers a severe lack of model & texture detail on tanks and AA’s, which happens to be featured quite a lot in the game due to the need to bomb them. I do not appreciate cabbage-grade work, but due to budget level I will let it slide.

While the ground units are sub-par, the damage model of the planes are surprisingly detailed compared against the former, even though in terms of gameplay planes are “just one health bar.” The smoke caused by bombing and downed planes also look nice, at least from another plane’s distance (i.e. “the player). The plane is in the sky, so the ground might look a bit bad, but the sky is good. Reasonable. This shows that the development team did its prioritization well.

Sound

It’s traditional to review about sound of the game as well. While I play games, I do not really master the fine art of sound appreciation, let alone music. The compositions and effects are good but the narratives and dialogues don’t have enough appropriate emotions in the voice acting. They sound more narrated than acted, especially how each of Guillaume Derbec’s drinking-line in the game story, which I cannot tell you for it is integral to the storyline.

System Requirements and Purchasing

As stated in its Steam page (link above), I think this game requires a bit too much of a graphics card. This level of game should not require anything beyond Shader Model 2.0 cards, while AC requires 3.0. This requirement is reasonable however as the game uses quite a lot of graphic effects.

The game sells for $19.99 on US Steam, and for $6.24 or more (current price when writing this, along with other games) on Indie Gala VI . If you decide to purchase the game on Indie Gala you might find it worth the price, as it also includes other games, bringing the “perceived cost” of AC down to $3 or less.

So go for it, get the Gala pack. The entire package is worth even more.

Conclusion

Air Conflicts: Secret Wars is a nice game to play for the arcade fun and don’t care much about sub-par graphics and less-than-good narratives. It’s the gameplay and level designs that make this game fun and worth its (reduced) price. My final score would be 69/100, taking some points off for graphics and narratives.

Disclaimer

Neither the entry author nor the blog are related to Games Farm (the developer), bitComposer Games (the publisher), Steam, or Indie Gala. All trademarks are owned by their owners and not me. The image used above should fall within fair-use as I use it to identify the blog entry as related to the game, no free images could be created as any screenshots of the game are also non-free, only one medium-resolution image is used, and the author has attributed the source.

Approximately one week after the release of Mass Effect 3, the final part to the Mass Effect trilogy (or at least, the last of Commander Shepard’s story arc), many players played through the end and were offered different ending paths. The presentation, and results, of these endings seem to have attracted negative comments.

Have you played Mass Effect 3, or its predecessors? Have you played other BioWare games? Do you have opinions on how BioWare writes their games or handles feedback? We could use a comment, right here, in the BSN, or the Demand a Better Ending to Mass Effect 3 page. Spoilers regarding the endings after the break.

Have you played alterIWnet? It’s the new Modern Warfare 2. That aside, players from Kasetsart University are reporting that the Kasetsart University Wireless Network (KUWin) is blocking the game.

Well I think I found the culprit. While I was browsing the folder, and with the (written) hints from the guys at alterIW.net, I found this file: MLibTorrent.dll

This file is a file that enables P2P upload/download to help transfer files between players, seemingly for updates and patches. P2P networking enables players to share updates with each other rapidly, enabling higher speed overall. But there’s a catch: You go too fast, and KUWin slams you off the Wireless Highway and dumps you in the “sewer.”

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See link on top for more details. Actual ads will go live after June 2012.